Vera’s office is located in the center of a warren of cubicles separating adjusters. Each small space is equipped with a desk, a rolling file, two chairs and a telephone, rather like a little bookie joint. Vera’s niche is identifiable by the pall of smoke hovering above the shoulder-high partitions. She’s the only one in the company who smokes and she does so with vigor, piling up stained white filter tips like ampules of distilled nicotine. She’s also addicted to Coca-Cola and she usually has a row of empty bottles marching around her desk, accumulating them at the rate of one every hour. She’s thirty-six, single, and she collects men with ease, though none of them seems to suit her. I peered into her cubicle. “What’d you do to your hair?” I asked when I caught sight of it.
“I was up all night. It’s a wig,” she said. She stuck a fresh cigarette between her teeth, biting gently while she lit up. I’ve always admired her smoking style. It’s jaunty and sophisticated, dainty and tough. She pointed to the wig, which was streaked with blond, a wind-blown effect.
“I’m thinking of dyeing my hair this shade. I haven’t been a blond for months.”
“I like it,” I said. Her usual color was auburn, a mix of several Clairol offerings that varied in hues from Sparkling Sherry to Flame. Her glasses today had tortoiseshell rims and big round lenses tinted the color of iced tea. She wore glasses so well it made other women wish their eyesight would fail.
“You must have a new man in your life,” I said.
Vera shrugged dismissively, shaking her head. “I got two actually, but I wasn’t up doing what you think. I read a book on how the new technology works. Lasers and analog-to-digital converters. I got curious about electricity yesterday, you know? Turns out nobody really knows what it is, which is worrisome if you ask me. Great terminology though. ‘Pulse amplitude’ and ‘oscillation.’ Maybe I’ll run into a guy I can say that to. What’s with you? You want a Coke?”
She had already opened her bottom file drawer where she kept a little cooler packed with ice. She pulled out a Coke in a bottle about the size of a Playtex nurser, and uncapped it by wedging it under the metal drawer handle and giving a quick downward snap. She proffered the bottle, but I shook my head and she drank it down herself. “Have a seat,” she said then and set the bottle on the desk top with a thunk.
I moved aside a stack of files and sat down in the extra chair. “What do you know about a woman named Marty Grice who was murdered six months ago? I heard she was insured through CFI.”
Vera touched daintily at the corners of her mouth with her thumb and index finger. “Sure, I was assigned to that one. I went out and took a look at the place two days after it happened. God, what a mess. I don’t have the proof of loss yet, but Pam Sharkey said she’d get it to me in the next couple of weeks.”
“She’s the agent on it?”
Vera nodded, taking a drag of her cigarette. She blew the smoke straight up. “The big life-insurance policy lapsed, but there was a little twenty-five-hundred-dollar policy in effect. That’s probably not enough to bury a dog these days. There’s also a homeowner’s for the fire loss, but the guy was desperately underinsured. Pam swears up and down she advised him to upgrade, but he didn’t want to be saddled with the added expense. You know how people get. They try to save six bucks and end up blowing two-three hundred thousand when the bottom drops out.” She tapped the cigarette on the lip of the empty Coke bottle, neatly knocking the ash into it.
“Why’s the settlement taking so long?”
Vera’s mouth turned down and she lowered one eyelid-a gesture that conveyed the message “big deal,” though I don’t know how. “Who knows?” she said. “The guy’s got a year to file the claim. Pam says he’s been a basket case since his wife died. He can hardly manage to sign his own name.”
“Did she leave a will?”
“Not that I heard. The whole thing’s been sitting in probate court for the last five months or so, in any event. What’s your interest in it? Are you looking into her death?”
“Not really. I’m looking for a woman who lived next door when it happened. She left town a couple of days afterward and hasn’t been seen since then by the people who count. I keep thinking there’s a connection. I was hoping you’d tell me there was a great big policy in effect.”
“The cops had the same idea. Your buddy Lieutenant Dolan was over here practically sitting in my lap for days. I kept saying, ‘Forget it! The guy’s broke. He’s not going to net a dime.’ I guess I finally convinced him because I haven’t heard from him since. What are you thinking, that Grice and this doll next door were in cahoots?”
“It did cross my mind. I haven’t met him yet and I have no idea whether there could have been a relationship between them, but it does look suspect. From what I’m told, she left town abruptly and she was upset. My first instinct was that maybe she’d seen something and took off to avoid getting caught up in it.”
“Maybe so.” Vera sounded dubious.
“But you don’t believe it.”
“I’m just looking at his end. If the guy killed his wife for fun and profit, he sure went about it wrong. Why let a policy lapse like that? If he were smart, he’d have jacked the face value up two-three years ago, let enough time pass so it didn’t look too obvious and then… whap, his wife is dead and he collects. If he killed her with no payoff, he’s an idiot.”
“Unless he just wanted her out of his way. Maybe that was all he cared about. Maybe letting the policy lapse was a ploy.”
“Hey, listen, what do I know? I’m not a homicide dick.”
“Me neither. I’m just trying to figure out why this woman disappeared and where she might have gone. Even if you’re right and Grice had nothing to do with it, she still might have witnessed something. This burglar business sounds too tidy for words.”
Vera smiled cynically. “Hell, maybe she did it herself.”
“God, you’re more suspicious than I am.”
“Well, you want Grice’s number? I got it somewhere here.” Vera paused to toss the tag end of her cigarette into the Coke bottle. There was a quick spitting sound as the ember touched the thimbleful of Coke that remained. She extracted a file from the bottom of a stack and found the telephone number and the address.
“Thanks,” I said.
She gave me a speculative look. “You interested in an unemployed aerospace engineer? He’s got bucks. He invented some little dingus they use now in all the satellites.”
“How come you don’t want him?” I asked. Vera tended to offer up her rejects like hostess gifts.
She made a face. “He was fine for a while, but now he’s on a health kick. Started taking algae pills. I don’t want to kiss a man who eats pond scum. I thought you might not object since you live so clean. Maybe you two could jog together and nibble dried seaweed snacks. If you’re interested, he’s yours.”
“You’re too good to me,” I said. “I’ll keep an eye out. I might run into someone who’s up for him.”
“You’re way too picky about men, Kinsey,” she said reprovingly.
“I’m picky?! What about you?”
Vera stuck another cigarette between her teeth and I watched her flick a tiny gold lighter into play before she spoke.
“I figure guys are like Whitman’s Samplers. I like to take a little bite out of each and then move on before the whole box gets stale.”
Chapter 9
It was 1:30 by now and as nearly as I could remember, I hadn’t eaten lunch. I pulled into a fast-food restaurant, parked, and went in. I could have hollered my order into a clown’s mouth and eaten in the car as I drove, but I wanted to show I had class. I wolfed down a cheeseburger, fries, and a Coke for a dollar sixty-nine and was back on the streets again in seven minutes flat.
The house where Leonard Grice was supposedly staying was located in a dingy tract of houses just off the freeway, a neighborhood of winding streets that had been named after states, starting with the East Coast. I rambled down Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Rhode Island Drives, getting stuck in tricky cul-de-sacs where Vermont and New Jersey turned into dead ends. It looked like the builder had gotten as far as Colorado Avenue before the money ran out or his knowledge of geography failed. There was a long stretch of vacant lots with stakes visible at intervals, each tied with a little white rag to mark off the undeveloped parcels of land.